From Trainset Junk to Respectable Model

[GP-9_Man11786]

Here's a couple of cheap trainset care that I've rpainted and made into halfway-respectabel models.

 

Lima Conrail Caboose Before:

After:

Here's another Lima Caboose:

Before:

After:

 

Bachmann Caboose:

Before:

After:

Anybody else have some trainset fixer-uppers to share?

[BRAKIE]

Those cabooses looks pretty  cotton picking good for "rescued" train set junk..

Good job on the refinishing/rebuilding.

[PRRT1MAN]

Great work!

[mbinsewi]

I posted this in the Diesel thread that was started a while ago, but I might as well post it here to.

This is an Athearn, out of the BB GP9.  It's one of my main switchers, and it's time for a rebuild.  Athearn has lots of details wrong on this, going by prototype pics, and I won't fix every one, I will turn this into a respectable switcher.

Some before pics:

 

 

 

And some after pics:

 

 

 

 

Now it's time for this loco to get back to work!

 

 

 

I have more pics and the story of what I changed in the Diesel thread.

 

Thanks for looking !

Mike.

[G Paine]

This is an old Tyco reefer that I brought up to my current standards, replacing the truck mounted horn-hook couplers with body mounted Kadees, replacing the trucks with better ones with impproved mountings and adding weight. Not a big change visually, but big improvement operationally

I published a how-to on this project on the forum in 2011
Pt 1 - Truck replacement
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/194011.aspx
Pt 2  - Coupler replacement
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/194274.aspx

EDIT: Liiks like you will have to copy & paste the links due to some glitch in the new Forum software program

[bogp40]

mbinsewi

I posted this in the Diesel thread that was started a while ago, but I might as well post it here to.

This is an Athearn, out of the BB GP9.  It's one of my main switchers, and it's time for a rebuild.  Athearn has lots of details wrong on this, going by prototype pics, and I won't fix every one, I will turn this into a respectable switcher.

 

 

I have more pics and the story of what I changed in the Diesel thread.

 

Thanks for looking !

Mike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice work, The  BB GP9 was actually my first "real" decent runner when got back into the hobby 24 years ago. Tweaked and detailed it to quite a decent looking runner. Bought another B&O Geep to renumber to run consisted. Ran these for many years even though my roster grew to include Kato, Stewart, Atlas, P2K and other fine pieces. They will always still be pride and joy.

[bogp40]

Nice resurection on those cabese. GP9 man.  Amazing what some TLC and weathering can do.

[dstarr]

Very nice cabeese.   With just some paint and weathering?   I like it. 

   Here is a train set hopper car (Bachmann, HO) that I put in my coal drags.  It's had body mount Kadee couplers, a home made coal load, trucks painted rust red, undercarriage painted dark gray, and an overall shot of Dullcote to kill the toy like gloss. 

I have others, but I will confess I usually don't go all the way to the bottom of the food chain.  Athearn blue boxes from train shows  form the starting point for most of my kitbash projects.   They can be had for $4 $5 a car.  Tyco and Bachmann are a step down, a little cheaper, but the Athearns look so much better for only a dollar or two more.

[CSX_road_slug]

GP-9_Man11786

... Anybody else have some trainset fixer-uppers to share?

U-betcha! This model is an upgraded Walthers Trainline wide-vision caboose, got it for ~$10.  I didn't bother taking any "before" photos, so you'll need to click on the link above if you want to see what it originally looked like.

[BRAKIE]

Ken,Great job! She looks good.

[Kyle]

Train set junk? I have an Athearn GP38-2 from a train set, and the quality is great!  The paint job is perfect, even the little warnings that I can't read are crisp.  It runs like a charm to.  I also have a caboose from the same trainset that has great detail. 

 

["JaBear"]

Gidday, Great Stuff so far. 

This started off life as an OO model of the French prototype, made by Joeuf, that was saved from the rubbish bin. The first photo is of my first resurrection, and the second is of my “I think I can do better?” redo.

DPCA by Bear, on Flickr

DSCF3930 by Bear, on Flickr

The Mehano boxcar has only had body mounted couplers, Atlas wheels and trucks, and extra weight fitted, now a better runner. The Lifelike covered hopper has had scratchbuilt grab irons and hatch handles fitted, a brake system made from Tichy spares, sprue and styrene off cuts, body mounted couplers, Proto wheels and trucks, and extra weight. If nothing else I had fun.

DSCF4509 by Bear, on Flickr

Cheers, the Bear.

[kbkchooch]

Here ya go

Tyco C430, in CB&Q red,,,,Tyco made millions of them circa 1970

Same engine, years later, rescued from the Junk box, new chassis, new paint, new life!

In fact, I was running it tonight!

[crhostler61]

I got out of photography some years ago...so there are no pictures of my old 'set' grade equipment. I have a good amount of Tyco/Mantua from the 1960-70's from my earliest days in the hobby, and later some Life Like and Bachmann. Some has been rebuilt and some in line to be rebuilt. I like alot of the old stuff. Add new trucks or wheels, Kadee couplers. And some careful weathering can make even those funky looking original paint jobs look good. 

I have several Mantua steam locos from the 60's I overhauled. They look and run better than many of the new RTR locos. 

Mark H

[E-L man tom]

I don't know how this will turn out as I have had trouble posting pictures to this forum. If you can bear with me, this is a "home made" caboose that I acquired the carbody parts for at a train show years ago. the underframe is from an old Tyco train set caboose and has had major modifications. All the improvements and details, except the couplers and trucks, are hand-fashioned

 

[E-L man tom]

E-L man tom

I don't know how this will turn out as I have had trouble posting pictures to this forum. If you can bear with me, this is a "home made" caboose that I acquired the carbody parts for at a train show years ago. the underframe is from an old Tyco train set caboose and has had major modifications. All the improvements and details, except the couplers and trucks, are hand-fashioned

 

Sorry, the picture came out distorted, but I think you can get a general idea

[Heartland Division CB&Q]

Here is a group of modified Tyco cars. The flat cars had unrealistic decks removed and replaced with everygreen scribed plastic sheets. The tank car was a junk Tyco car in bad condition which was rebuilt and painted to be a CB&Q company service car.

The hoppers are common Tyco Burlington cars. For two of them I overprayed on top of the bright red cars with mineral red. The layer of paint was thin enough so original lettering shows through looking faded. One hopper was just weathered. All cars had Kadee couplers installed. Some cars had trucks replaced and others just had wheelsets replaced. 

In the last photo you can see one of my silver cabooses. It and 2 others were made from the common Bachmann train set cabooses lettered for Santa Fe. One of my projects was to make this conservsion with 3 cabooses. At the same time I converted and upgraded two Athearn cabooses lettered for CB&Q and repainted them for Santa Fe consistant with the design of those cabooses. 

[doctorwayne]

Lots of good-looking upgrades here.

Here's another Tyco reefer.  These are actually pretty decent-looking cars, and with new trucks and couplers, plus wire grabs, sill steps and new lettering, can fit in well on many layouts.  Here's one of four which I upgraded some time ago:

However, I felt that the steel ends were too modern for my late '30s-era layout, so I removed them.  As you can see, I misplaced the cuts and ended up with shortened cars.  Here's an in-progress view:

...and one of the re-worked cars.  In addition to new "wood" ends (Evergreen car siding), all four cars got scratchbuilt floors with composite steel and truss rod underframes (queenposts from MDC, with Tichy turnbuckles), and scratchbuilt radial roofs:

 

This is a LifeLike (Proto-No-Thousand) reefer.  I gave three of them new trucks and couplers, plus a few details, and put them into service hauling ice to several on-line ice houses:

However, with the moulded-on ice hatches still in place, it was too easy to mistake them for regular service reefers, so I gave them new scratchbuilt roofs without hatches.  With some upgraded details and new paint and lettering, they're now back in service:

 

Here's a tank from an old Varney tankcar.  With no frame or trucks, I got it free at a train show.  As you can see, I had enough money left to buy a Tichy kit for a tankcar underframe :

However, the tank was a little too long to fit its new frame.  I sliced off the ends, then removed a short piece and re-attached the ends:

After adding a few details and some paint and lettering (decals from BlackCat), I had a useable tankcar:

I'm not sure that I'd consider Athearn to be "trainset" quality, but the BlueBox cars are definitely good fodder for kitbashing and modifications.  Here's a bay window caboose, picked-up new for four bucks:

While I didn't alter the car's appearance all that much, I did upgrade some of the details, while still allowing the car to be easily disassembled should the need arise.  This was accomplished by sectioning the floor, and making the ends of it part of the platforms.  This permitted me to build new ladders and end railings, then cement the assemblies in-place on the car's ends.  The centre section of the floor was attached with screws, allowing easy removal:

I used a file to remove the too-modern diagonal panels from the roof, then replaced them with straight ones made from .015" sheet styrene, then added free-standing grab irons and brake rigging, along with screen doors made from styrene and silk-screening fabric:

Here's the car in service:

Another Athearn upgrade to backdate their steel boxcar to one of an earlier style turned into a real "project",  The first step was to remove the roof at a point below the eaves, then sand the top edge of the sides in order to lower the cars' height by about 6"HO:

The roofs (I did eight cars) were then re-cemented to the cars:

The next step was to remove only the roofs, leaving the eaves in place:

After a little clean-up, new Viking-style roofs from Des plaines Hobbies were added:

...followed by removal of the cars' ends:

...and replacement with ones from Tichy:

I used Central Valley floors and underframes, as the deep continuous sidesills (strip styrene) which I used to replace the tab-style sills pretty-well hide any underbody detail.
Roofwalks and tackboards were built-up from strip styrene, doors and ladders are from Tichy, National B-1 trucks from Proto, and the lettering is custom dry transfers from C-D-S.  Here's one in service:

Wayne

[bogp40]

Wayne, always enjoy seeing your work, but it was great to see some of the work in progress to get that final result.

[Catt]

1976 Life Like Thrall All door boxcar.metal stirrups ,metal wheels and body mounted KaDee couplers.I also colour matched the ends which for some reason LifeLike thought should be black.I have about 10 of these cars for different companies some of them definately showing many many years of hard service.

[Michael6792]

Kyle

Train set junk? I have an Athearn GP38-2 from a train set, and the quality is great!  The paint job is perfect, even the little warnings that I can't read are crisp.  It runs like a charm to.  I also have a caboose from the same trainset that has great detail. 

 

 

 

I think when most people refer to "train set junk" they are thinking of the old tyco/bachmann/life like/model power sets. I know Athearn made train sets but they were a better grade than the forementioned sets that you could find at most departmet stores.

[steamage]

I needed 35 flat cars for my Southern Pacific unit lumber train, so I bought Tyco's for a dollar or two each.  Add wire grab irons and steps looks almost as nice as those $39.00 flat cars.

A Tyco Gondola that is close to an SP prototype.

Tyco operating hopper makes a very close SP Ballast Hopper.

 

Yeah, I do have a lot of cheep toy train stuff running on the layout.

[Packer]

Catt

1976 Life Like Thrall All door boxcar.metal stirrups ,metal wheels and body mounted KaDee couplers.I also colour matched the ends which for some reason LifeLike thought should be black.I have about 10 of these cars for different companies some of them definately showing many many years of hard service.

 

I have a bunch of these, and I've always wanted more Bennet Lumber ones..

[AntonioFP45]

Excellent thread!

So glad to see this as I have a fleet of Athearn BB cars that I'd like to "hop up" to more realistic appearances.  Although I like prototypical style modeling, sometimes my eyes glaze over when I read the frequent oral/verbal trashing of the BB type equipment.  Yes, standards were raised and there are many attractive and more prototypical units on the market.........but there are those of us that have sizable fleets of rolling stock that we purchased decades ago and are not in the position to invest hundreds or even thousands of dollars to replace our entire fleet.  So, while we may purchase a smattering of high quality rolling stock here and there, we "work with what we have" and the efforts often pay off as seen on this thread.

Doc I have an identical BB New Haven caboose that I bought back in the early 80s.  Outstanding work!

I hope you don't mind my asking, but what method and tool do you use to bend those railings and ladders to such smooth and precise curves? They're impressive. 

 

 

doctorwayne

 

 

I'm not sure that I'd consider Athearn to be "trainset" quality, but the BlueBox cars are definitely good fodder for kitbashing and modifications.  Here's a bay window caboose, picked-up new for four bucks:

While I didn't alter the car's appearance all that much, I did upgrade some of the details, while still allowing the car to be easily disassembled should the need arise.  This was accomplished by sectioning the floor, and making the ends of it part of the platforms.  This permitted me to build new ladders and end railings, then cement the assemblies in-place on the car's ends.  The centre section of the floor was attached with screws, allowing easy removal:

I used a file to remove the too-modern diagonal panels from the roof, then replaced them with straight ones made from .015" sheet styrene, then added free-standing grab irons and brake rigging, along with screen doors made from styrene and silk-screening fabric:

Here's the car in service:

 

Wayne

 

 

[doctorwayne]

Thanks for your kind words, Antonio.

I made a couple of simple jigs for ladder construction, as I also add them to some steam loco tenders, and will be scratchbuilding 10 or 12 wood cabooses for my freelance roads.  The material used for the jigs is hard maple - very smooth and stable.  The bending jig is simply a shape done in a thin piece of wood, then, using yellow carpenter's glue, affixed to a heavier piece of the same wood:

I use a small pair of smooth-jawed pliers to form the bends - the Detail Associates flat brass bar (010"x.030") is soft and easily bent, and the smooth jaws leave the brass unmarked.  I formed it roughly on the wooden form, periodically re-flattening the developing shape as required.  Once I had the two stiles formed, they were placed, one atop the other, on the form and "adjusted" with the pliers to make them as close as possible to identical.  Both pieces were lightly tinned, then, while held in place on the form, soldered together.
After trimming them to size, I used a set of dividers to lightly scribe a centreline along their length, then, after re-setting the dividers, "walked-off" the drilling points for the rungs.
The soft brass drilled easily using a pin vise and a #79 bit.
After the holes were drilled, the assembly was heated and the two stiles separated.  I used a small file to clean away the excess solder and then used the drill bit to re-opened any holes closed with solder during the re-heating process.

The stiles were then placed in an assembly jig also made of hard maple.  The two small pieces between the stiles are glued in place on the larger board, as is the flat piece at the foot of the ladder.  With the stiles placed appropriately, an additional flat piece is added to each side and clamped in place with sprung clothes pegs.  The cut-out provides easy access for a soldering iron.
After adding the .012" brass wire rungs, a minute dab of paste flux was added to both ends of each.  I also placed two straight pins (in drilled holes) to prevent the stiles from being forced inward by the tip of the soldering iron.

Using a 25 watt iron, a quick touch to each rung-end secured the parts.  Once removed from the jig, the excess rung material was removed using a cut-off disc im my Dremel, then the final clean-up was done with needle files. 

 

If further soldering is required on these ladders (such as adding the straight wire to facilitate mounting them to the car, as shown in a previous photo), simply place a small wad of wet paper towel or tissue between the area being soldered and the nearest already-soldered joint. 
The same type of heat sink is also useful when soldering details which have been installed on a plastic car or loco, such as the tender ladder shown below.

Because the ladders rungs are curve around the front corner of the tender, I had to install the pre-drilled stiles first.  They're pinned in place with soldered-on wires, visible on the bottom inner faces of the stiles.  The rungs were bent as they were added, then, with both ends of both stiles covered in wads of wet tissue to protect both the soldered-on pins and the plastic into which the pins had been inserted, the rungs were soldered in place.  Clean-up, naturally, was with the ladder in place.

Wayne

[FRRYKid]

They're probably not contest quality, but I have a fleet (soon to be 8, IIRC, all in various states of assembly. For most of them, a date with my Dremel tool will get them fully assembled) of GP20s that started out as junk units. They started out life as Tyco GP20s, all purchased online. All of the shells have had the old truck mounting holes filled in, the incorrect horn holes filled in and a few other odds and ends. The existing drives were replaced with modified Athearn GP35 drives for the powered units and frames for the non-powered units. The couplers have been body mounted, The horns and antenna are metal details.  The rotary beacons are Detail Associates flashers. (I find the plastic units easier to work with.) The handrails are the metal Tyco upgrade kits with modified Athearn stanchions. (If you have ever looked at the number of stanchions on a GP20 and multiply that by 7 [I haven't bent the stanchions yet for the eighth unit. The shell is still sitting in the to-finish pile.], that is a lot of stanchions!) They are custom lettered for my freelanced railroad. While I don't have pics, I took a couple of them to a convention with me last summer and got compliments on them.

[dknelson]

A friend of mine who is a custom painter once mentioned to me that many lines of model trains were held in contempt as junk but when their over-thick paint was stripped off, there was often a wealth of fine detail that had been placed into the original tooling.  Often the biggest problems were the mechanism and the "durable" but nonscale handrails and such.  He showed me an AHM diesel shell that he had stripped -- maybe it was their SD40 or their GP18 -- and it was indeed impressive.  It is somewhat sad to think that some tool and die man worked hard on the shells only to have their paint department fill every gap and detail with paint applied with a cow's tail.

What is always remarkable is the potential Doctor Wayne sees in what initially would strike most modelers as being pretty unpromising raw material.  

The take away is that some train set junk is in fact junk, but that some things regarded as train set junk are train set but not junk, just poorly painted, plopped on poor frames and trucks, or saddled with poor mechanisms and handrails.  

Dave Nelson

[doctorwayne]

Thanks for your kind assessment of my work, Dave. 

I had some reservations when a good friend asked if there was anything which could be done to make a Rivarossi C-Liner into an acceptable representation of a CNR loco.  However, I was fortunate to discover that the mechanism from a Stewart Baldwin (an AS-16, if I recall correctly) was almost a drop-in fit for it, and was able to find one locally at a really good price.  Detail Associates offered C-liner sideframes which were a snap-in replacement on the Stewart trucks, and armed with some prototype photos from my friend, I was able to do a fairly respectable model of a CNR locomotive.  Paint is SMP Accupaint, and the decals are Accucals from the same company.

LifeLike Proto1000 later offered a nicely-done version of these locos (including B-units) and also some of the 5-axles versions, too.  My friend bought several of each, but the re-worked Rivarossi loco doesn't look out of place in a consist with them.

 

Wayne

[dknelson]

Very nice work on the FM C Liner Wayne

It is a strange thing but the sideframes that came with the powered C Liners were not very well done but for an unpowered B unit, AHM or their original source redid the side frame into a very respectable and accurate model indeed.  Yet I do not believe that improved side frame ever saw use on the powered versions, and the unpowered B units were decidedly scarce.

Dave Nelson

[Catt]

These three old ladies are the same LifeLike as my Bennett car(s) just weathered up from pics of another (real) Michigan shortline,but with my reporting marks.